1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the invention relate to application development, and in particular, to application development tools for identifying impact of database changes on an application.
2. Description of the Related Art
Databases are computerized information storage and retrieval systems. A Relational Database Management System (RDBMS) is a database management system (DBMS) which uses relational techniques for storing and retrieving data. Relational databases are organized into tables which consist of rows and columns of data. The rows are formally called tuples. A database will typically have many tables and each table will typically have multiple tuples and multiple columns. The tables are typically stored on random access storage devices (RASD) such as magnetic or optical disk drives for semi-permanent storage.
RDBMS software using a Structured Query Language (SQL) interface is well known in the art. The SQL interface has evolved into a standard language for RDBMS software and has been adopted as such by both the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and the International Standards Organization (ISO). The SQL interface allows users to formulate relational operations on the tables either interactively, in batch files, or embedded in host languages, such as C or COBOL. SQL allows the user to manipulate data. The definitions for SQL provide that a RDBMS should respond to a particular query with a particular set of data given a specified database content.
Applications (i.e., application programs) communicate with relational databases using Structured Query Language (SQL). SQL statements are issued to the RDBMS, which executes the SQL statements to access a relational database. The SQL statements received from an application are executed within a “unit of work”, which is a collection of related SQL statements. Once the SQL statements are executed they are either “committed” (i.e., the changes made by the executed SQL statements is made permanent in the relational database) or they are “rolled back” (i.e., the changes made by the executed SQL statements are removed, returning the relational database to the state it was in prior to execution of these statements.
SQL statements that involve modifying data (e.g., inserting, updating, or deleting rows) are called Data Manipulation Language (DML) statements. The SQL statements that involve defining database elements (e.g., defining data tables, views, or indexes) are called Data Definition Language (DDL) statements.
Tools are available for altering database schemas (e.g., tools used to generate DDL statements). However, such tools are disconnected from the tools for various artifacts that access them, such as applications, routines containing database access, and database web services. When proposing changes to database schemas via DDL, database administrators (DBAs) and developers cannot predict how the application and the artifact it accesses would be affected by the change.